— XII —THE RECTORY GARDEN
The rectory garden! The words convey a picture to the mind. The garden at Baynham Rectory materialised it, perhaps, as well as any could that summer afternoon. An old garden, cherished with loving care, a spacious lawn, which surely generations of gardeners had watched and tended, giant trees, standing at sufficient distances apart, in just those places where shade was most required, over all, the glory of the June sun. On the lawn a game of tennis was being played, two against one; but as the two were quite little, and the one was rather large, the game was scarcely even. As a matter of fact, Doris Owen was doing with her antagonists very much what she chose.
The players appeared to advantage amid their surroundings; they became them very well. The small boy an
